5-Minute Scan Reveals Brain Maturity

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A five-minute brain scan can reveal the maturity of a child's
brain, according to a new study. The results could be used to
track abnormal brain development and catch brain disorders like
autism early.

The study, published online this week in the journal Science,
uses a specialized method of mathematically sifting through
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data to form a picture not just
of the brain's structure, but the way its various regions work
together.

"The beauty of this approach is that it lets you ask what's
different in the way that
children with autism, for example, are off the normal
development curve versus the way that children
with attention-deficit disorder are off that curve," study
researcher Bradley Schlaggar, a pediatric neurologist at the
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said in a
statement.

Measuring mental maturity

As the human brain matures, its organization changes. The
tightest connections in young children's brains are between areas
that are physically near one another. As the brain ages, these
connections shift and networks connecting distant regions become
the strongest.

To measure these shifts over time, Schlagger and his colleagues
used a method called resting state functional connectivity. As
the participants rest in an MRI scanner, the researchers use the
machine to measure increases and decreases in blood flow to
various brain regions. Correlating the blood flow changes allows
the researchers to learn which regions communicate and work
together.

The researchers collected five-minute MRI scans from 238 healthy
people ages 7 to 30. They ran data on 13,000 functional brain
connections through a tool called a support vector machine, which
crunched the numbers and selected the 200 connections that best
predicted brain maturity. The result was a single index of the
maturity of each person's brain. After the data were analyzed,
researchers were able to predict whether subjects were
children or adults just from their brain organization. Much like
a child's height or weight chart, the data formed a curving line
that tracks the average path of normal brain development.

Mapping out the brain's function, on the other hand, can lead to
psychiatric insights. A study of 20 cocaine abusers and 20
healthy people published in May in the journal PloS One, for
example, found differences in functional connectivity in the drug
abusers' brains. And a December 2009 study in the journal
Magnetic Resonance in Medicine found that the same methods used
by Schlagger and his team could be useful in distinguishing the
brains
of depressed patients from healthy brains.

The researchers hope their new findings could be used to create a
normal brain growth chart. Kids at risk for developmental
disorders could be scanned to see if their brain development is
off course. If so, doctors might be able to start treatment
before symptoms begin, Schlagger said.

MRIs are expensive, the researchers warn, so they're unlikely to
show up at pediatricians' offices just yet. But study researcher
Nico Dosenbach, a pediatric neurology resident at St. Louis
Children's Hospital, said many children with psychiatric
disorders or who are at risk for the disorders already get MRIs.

"Five more minutes in the scanner,” Dosenbach said, “won't add
that much to the cost."